Redefining screwball and reappropriating liminal spaces: the contemporary bromance and Todd Phillips' The Hangover DVD

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This article argues that the central drives of the screwball genre are renegotiated in the recent spate of 'bromance' films, amongst them the aptly titled I Love You, Man (Hamburg 2009), Apatow's The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005) and Funny People (2009), and, most recently, Gordon's Horrible Bosses (2011) ); and that Todd Phillips' The Hangover (2009) in particular - with its doubly trangressional contrivance of a road trip and weekend in Vegas - marks the zenith of a genre compelled by a distinctly Bakhtinian 'grotesque body'. Moreover, this article suggests, Phillips' fragmented narrative and reappropriation of the DVD text's liminal spaces (primarily its closing credit sequence and 'extras') may have significant ramifications for readings of contemporary 'bromantic' relations.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)5 - 16
Number of pages11
JournalComedy Studies Journal
Volume3
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 3 Jan 2014

Keywords

  • film comedy
  • bromance
  • screwball
  • gender
  • comedy and pain
  • carnivalesque
  • Mikhail Bakhtin

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Redefining screwball and reappropriating liminal spaces: the contemporary bromance and Todd Phillips' The Hangover DVD'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this